How to Avoid Food Waste, According to a Chef

Food waste is making headlines again, thanks in no small part to Anthony Bourdain. After lashing out against Hillary Clinton for her response to the Harvey Weinstein allegations, the famously outspoken chef is using his platform to another end: changing the way people buy and eat their food. In his new documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste, Bourdain shares some startling statistics, like how 1.3 billion tons of food is thrown out each year (that's a third of all the food grown worldwide). We recently sat down with Nick Anderer, executive chef at Marta, Maialino, and the newly-opened Martina, to discuss the issue of food waste at a screening of the film hosted by Wine n Dine and MovieGrade at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in downtown Brooklyn. Here, read some excerpts from the Q&A.

Unfortunately, not much of it really shocked me. If you’re an active chef and you like to read a book or two, or turn on the television and watch Netflix, these things are put in your face nowadays. What’s unfortunate is how little actually gets done about it. It was eye-opening to see some of the things that were happening in Asia that I wasn’t fully aware of, like the garbage cans [Ed note: South Korea separates food waste like recyclables and charges a fee for what goes unused]. I thought that was a really cool contraption they had to penalize people.

How have you confronted the issue of food waste in the kitchen?

We started getting heavily into composting. It’s amazing—once you make that switch, you realize how much of what you’re producing in a restaurant is compostable. Depending on the restaurant, maybe 90 to 95 percent of the waste by volume is organic material. Then you start to think about that other 5 or 10 percent that’s there and could be composted, whether it’s a straw or a napkin or even the packaging that you’re using. Or if you’re getting things from the farmer’s market, how many containers you’re sending back to them.

The big takeaway for me from this film was the simple message of cooking more. Everything starts with what your habits are at home. If my group of friends decided tomorrow that they’d start going out to eat less and stay in and make something, that would be a great place to start. Growing up, that’s the way that I lived—my parents cooked me food just about every single night. Going out was a special thing. As much as I want to sustain my businesses and keep people in my seats at my restaurants, I would encourage people to stay at home a couple of nights a week and cook. That would be a big cultural shift.

VIDEO: Watch Chef Nick Anderer Talk About Food Waste

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Show Transcript

When you were first approached about this project, what did you think? Was there... I hated the whole idea of this movie. Why? So serious. I don't even know that we deserve to live. But as a young cook, I came up in an old school system. Use everything. Waste nothing. I've actually never thought about what happens This is my food, when I throw it away. In the United States, 40% of the food we produce is going to waste. [MUSIC] Food production is the single biggest cause of deforestation, water extraction, biodiversity loss. More and more people are concerned about climate change and one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases is the food that they are throwing away. We are literally Mostly taking food out of the mouth of the hungry and we are sending food waste int land fill. That is crazy. We dont need to produce one. We need to act different. [MUSIC] What does the chef do. They take something that's ugly and tough and transform it into something wonderful. We celebrate utilisation of nose-to-tail for an animal, but rarely for a farm. None of this typically gets consumed. That's delicious. Wow. That's what I love about waste. You have to look at your kitchen in a different light. I think we got it. Flavor's amazing, right? Mm. People think it's a garbage fish. I put it on On the menu is [UNKNOWN] Americana. So you make up the name. I mean this is [BLEEP] awesome. Fisherman's wives took this reject fish, and then they created bouillabaisse. Prosciutto di Parma, that is a waste fed fig. They're not sold as waste, they're sold as delicious dishes. We have the power to demand change from the food industry. Unless we shout about it, they'll never change. We need to harness people's obsession with food right now. We're learning from that resourcefulness. My god. [LAUGH] This is like the best thing I've ever had, ever. It really does come down to, what are our values User society. You gonna help me cook when we get home? I'll try and help. Tackling food waste doesn't need to be depressing, it's delicious. It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter how much money you have, you can reduce the amount of food waste. That's exciting, this is something important, we can do it. [MUSIC] Anyone can enjoy the smug self satisfaction of doing the right thing. How often do you get to do that? [BLANK_AUDIO]

When you were first approached about this project, what did you think? Was there... I hated the whole idea of this movie. Why? So serious. I don't even know that we deserve to live. But as a young cook, I came up in an old school system. Use everything. Waste nothing. I've actually never thought about what happens This is my food, when I throw it away. In the United States, 40% of the food we produce is going to waste. [MUSIC] Food production is the single biggest cause of deforestation, water extraction, biodiversity loss. More and more people are concerned about climate change and one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases is the food that they are throwing away. We are literally Mostly taking food out of the mouth of the hungry and we are sending food waste int land fill. That is crazy. We dont need to produce one. We need to act different. [MUSIC] What does the chef do. They take something that's ugly and tough and transform it into something wonderful. We celebrate utilisation of nose-to-tail for an animal, but rarely for a farm. None of this typically gets consumed. That's delicious. Wow. That's what I love about waste. You have to look at your kitchen in a different light. I think we got it. Flavor's amazing, right? Mm. People think it's a garbage fish. I put it on On the menu is [UNKNOWN] Americana. So you make up the name. I mean this is [BLEEP] awesome. Fisherman's wives took this reject fish, and then they created bouillabaisse. Prosciutto di Parma, that is a waste fed fig. They're not sold as waste, they're sold as delicious dishes. We have the power to demand change from the food industry. Unless we shout about it, they'll never change. We need to harness people's obsession with food right now. We're learning from that resourcefulness. My god. [LAUGH] This is like the best thing I've ever had, ever. It really does come down to, what are our values User society. You gonna help me cook when we get home? I'll try and help. Tackling food waste doesn't need to be depressing, it's delicious. It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter how much money you have, you can reduce the amount of food waste. That's exciting, this is something important, we can do it. [MUSIC] Anyone can enjoy the smug self satisfaction of doing the right thing. How often do you get to do that? [BLANK_AUDIO]

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